Oregon’s unemployment rate was 3.8 percent in August, which was Oregon’s lowest unemployment rate since comparable records began in 1976. Oregon’s July unemployment rate was 3.9 percent. The U.S. unemployment rate was 3.9 percent in both July and August. The number of Oregonians unemployed shrank in recent months. In August, the number of unemployed people dropped to 80,500, which is down from 88,000 in August 2017. The low number of unemployed reflects a very tight job market. Many people just entering the labor force are getting snapped up by employers. In August, there were only about 20,000 new entrants to the labor force who were unemployed; this was only one-third the number of such “unemployed entrants” seen in the early 2010s. This means that there are far fewer Oregonians just entering the workforce who can’t find a job. Meanwhile in August, of the unemployed Oregonians, 28,000 had lost their job—a historically low level, given that in 2009 there were five times the number of unemployed due to job loss.
